By: Sen. Dan Knodl
“The law is crystal clear,” exclaimed Ann Jacobs, chair of the six-member Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC), at a special meeting this past Tuesday. This does not seem like an ironic statement on its face, but my eyes rolled to the back of my head hearing these words from Ms. Jacobs; more about this later on.
WEC convened to vote on which presidential candidates will appear on our ballots this November. Seven political parties will have presidential candidates on the ballot. Much to the chagrin of Chair Jacobs, Jill Stein of the Green Party and Cornel West, an Independent, will be on the ballot this fall. Why the angst? Because these candidates and parties may take away votes from the Democratic nominee. In the same twisted logic, she felt it was essential to keep RFK Jr on the ballot because it is thought he will take votes away from the Republican nominee for President.
It must be hard for this “objective” commissioner to say she is a defender of democracy as she tries to eliminate as much competition for her preferred Democratic Party candidate. In essence, she is trying to eliminate tens of thousands of voters in a crucial battleground state where the last four of six presidential elections have been decided by between 5,000 and almost 23,000 votes. Not only is Chair Jacobs a Democratic appointee, she is a delegate for the Democratic National Convention and a long-time donor to Democratic candidates.
Chair Jacobs was adamant in her argument that the law is crystal clear. My question to her is, “Where is this new found reverence for the law, when she blatantly disregarded the law to serve her Democratic party’s interest in 2020?”
During the presidential election of 2020, this same clarity was lost on Wis. Stat. § 6.875 (2)(a), which clearly states, “absentee voting in person inside residential care facilities and qualified retirement homes shall be conducted by… special voting deputies (SVDs) to conduct absentee voting in person.” Unfortunately, Chair Jacobs disregarded her “new-found” focus on the originalist text of the law and denied the deployment of SVDs and instead sent everyone in these nursing homes an absentee ballot. Then-commissioner Dean Knudson noted, “We will be essentially telling the clerks to break the law.”
Finally, Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling and Sgt. Mike Luell investigated substantial claims about voter fraud in Racine residential care facilities. Their report found there was no law barring SVDs from going to nursing homes; whereas, there was a law saying they had to do so.
It is quite curios as to why Chair Jacobs wants to follow the letter of the law now, but not in her past decisions. It leads one to think she is purely making political decisions and not decisions based on what is best for election integrity for our state’s citizens.
Jill Stein of the Green Party said it best, “The Democrats constantly preach about ‘saving democracy,’ when in reality they’ve been doing everything they can to crush democracy by trying to remove the Green Party and others from the ballot.”
